The world’s best cyclist, and one of the best in history, has given up his quest for Olympic glory on August 3 in Paris. This was announced by the Slovenian Olympic Committee, which reported that Tadej Pogacar has decided to withdraw from the Olympic Games, claiming that he is “too tired.” The recent winner of the Tour and the Giro by a landslide, was part of the Slovenian team for the road race, along with Matej Mohoric, Jan Tratnik and Luka Mezgec. Pogacar, 25, had already given up competing in the time trial, scheduled for Saturday 27, in which the Slovenian representative will be Tratnik, Jonas Vingegaard’s teammate at Visma. Domen Novak, Pogacar’s teammate at UAE, and Slovenian champion, will replace the three-time winner of the Tour.
Pogacar’s relations with his Olympic committee were on the verge of breaking down a few weeks ago, when Slovenian officials decided not to select the rider’s girlfriend, Urska Zigart, for the Paris Games. Pogacar publicly criticised the decision, recalling that Zigart is the best cyclist in his country, as she proved by winning the national championships in the road and time trials.
Between March and July, Pogacar has competed for 52 days, during which time he has achieved 20 victories (Strade Bianche, Volta a Catalunya and four stages, Giro and six stages and Tour and another six), a calendar that, including the high altitude training camps to prepare, has allowed him to spend only a couple of weeks out of the five months at his home in Monaco with his partner.
The Olympic Games, which admitted professional cyclists for the first time in Atlanta 1996, have only twice been favourable to the winners of the Tour, which is too close in time. Only the German Jan Ullrich has a victory in the Tour (1997) and in the Olympic road race, thanks in particular to the support of his Telekom teammates at the Sydney 2000 Games. The German public telephone company’s team, in fact, took the podium, with Alexander Vinokurov taking the silver medal and Andreas Klöden the bronze. The other exception is Miguel Indurain, who decided to take part in the Atlanta Games despite having suffered a defeat in his last Tour in 1996 at the hands of the Dane Bjarne Riis. A few days after announcing in Bordeaux that he would go to the Games, Indurain won the Olympic title in the time trial in the North American city ahead of Abraham Olano. It was the last victory for the Navarrese champion, who two months later withdrew from a Vuelta that he had competed against his will and in January 1997 announced his retirement from cycling at the age of 32.
The big favourite in the race will be the world champion, the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who has used the Tour to fine-tune his set-up. He will also be favoured by the absence of the Olympic champion in Tokyo, the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, king of the mountains in the Tour but left out in his country in favour of Jonathan Narváez, and that of Pogacar, who was not particularly benefited by an Olympic circuit that runs through the gentle hills of the Chevreuse, where Jean Robic revolutionised the 1947 Tour, before arriving in the capital and undertaking the tourist triple ascent in the streets of Paris to the hill of the Sacré Coeur basilica in Mortmartre, as the most difficult moment. In Tokyo, precisely, Pogacar finished with the bronze medal after losing to Wout van Aert in the sprint for third place behind the escaped Carapaz.
Before heading to the beach with Zigart, Pogacar will take a mass bath on Wednesday at the Congress Square in Ljubljana. The Slovenian capital has proclaimed July 24 as the Tadej Pogacar Day, in honor of the winner of the jerseypink and the yellow jersey.
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